The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(4)

Thea curled her lips into a semblance of a smile. “Yep.”

“Make sure your strongest hand is at the butt of the handle.”

“Yep. I got it.” Thea shoved the change in her pocket.

The man tugged on his suspenders. “Whatcha knockin’ down?”

“Patriarchal power structures.”

He blinked.

“A wall.”

“Make sure it’s not load-bearing first.”

The need to hit something surged again like a bad case of Twitter rage. Thea hoisted the sledgehammer onto her shoulder, but just as she started to swing, the front door flew open. The girls ran inside, their tutus bouncing over little pink tights and their blonde pigtails swinging in unison. Their golden retriever, Butter Ball, patiently followed behind like a K9 nanny. Her sister, Liv, brought up the rear, holding Butter’s leash.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” Amelia asked, screeching to a halt, a combination of awe and trepidation in her tiny voice. Thea didn’t blame her. Mommy probably didn’t look like Mommy right now.

“I’m knocking down a wall,” Thea said, keeping her voice light.

“Aw, yeah,” Liv said, rubbing her hands together. “I’m getting in on this action.” Dropping Butter’s leash, she crossed the room and reached for the sledgehammer. “Can I pretend it’s his face?”

“Liv,” Thea warned quietly. She knew her sister wouldn’t intentionally say anything bad about Gavin in front of the girls. They’d both learned the hard way that the only people who suffer when one parent bad-mouths the other are the children. But Liv’s mouth had a way of acting on its own sometimes. Like now.

“Whose face, Aunt Livvie?” Amelia asked.

Thea shot an I told you so look at her sister.

“My boss,” Liv answered quickly. Liv worked for a notoriously tyrannical celebrity chef at a famous Nashville restaurant. Liv complained about him enough that the girls didn’t question whether Liv was telling the truth or not.

“Can we hit the wall too?” Amelia asked.

“This is dangerous grown-up work,” Thea said. “But you can watch.”

Liv swung hard with a Tarzan cry and knocked another chunk of drywall to the floor. The girls cheered and jumped up and down. Ava let out a whoop and karate kicked the air. Amelia attempted a cartwheel. It was officially on in the living room.

“Damn, that felt good,” Liv said, handing the sledgehammer back to Thea. “We need music for this.”

As Thea took possession of the tool once again, Liv dug out her cell phone, swiped the screen a few times, and then the Bluetooth speakers throughout the house blared with the voice of Aretha Franklin demanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Liv grabbed Gavin’s bat from the floor, held it like a microphone, and started belting out the lyrics. She extended her hand to Thea, so Thea joined in for the girls’ benefit, who laughed as if the impromptu concert was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

And just like that, she and Liv were teenagers again, singing at the top of their lungs in the stuffy bedroom they shared at Gran Gran’s house. It was there, while their mother was off finding herself in a haze of anger and alimony and their father was too busy cheating on wife number two to pay attention to his daughters, that they memorized P!nk songs and promised to never trust a man, to never be as weak as their mother or as selfish as their father, and to always protect each other.

It was them against the world. Always.

And now again. Only this time, Thea didn’t just have a little sister to protect. She had to protect the girls. And she would. No matter what it took. She would make sure they never knew what it was like to grow up surrounded by tension or as the pawn between two warring parents.

A swell of sudden emotion stung the corners of Thea’s eyes as an ache spread through her chest. Her voice caught on the lyrics as her throat convulsed. Spinning away from the girls, she swiped at her face.

Liv casually covered for her. “Hey, girls. Run upstairs and change your clothes, OK? First one to the stairs gets to pick the movie tonight.”

The promise of competition sent the girls scrambling toward the stairs. Seconds later, the song quieted.

“You OK?” Liv asked.

A painful lump blocked Thea’s voice. “What if I’ve already hurt them?”

“You haven’t,” Liv said sharply. “You are the best mom I have ever known.”

“All I wanted, have ever wanted, was to give them a life that we never had. To give them safety and security and—”

Liv grabbed Thea’s shoulders and turned her around. “He’s the one who moved out.”

“Yes, because I told him to go.” She hadn’t been able to take one more minute of the cold shoulder after nearly a month of him refusing to talk about anything and pouting in the guest room. Two toddlers in the household were her limit.

“And he couldn’t go fast enough,” Liv said.

True. Still, guilt gnawed at Thea’s edges. There were things Liv didn’t know. Gavin was wrong to react the way he did when he discovered Thea had been faking it in bed, but Thea shouldn’t have let him find out that way. “It takes two people to ruin a relationship.”

Liv tilted her head. “Sure, but I’m your sister, which means I’m biologically predisposed to only take your side.”